Gelatin Gems

I came up with this last summer after struggling to try and find a way to fill small candy gem molds with isomalt. It’s fast, cheap and easy when you need a quick gem and don’t fill like working with hot sugar.

You will need:

• candy gem molds
• unflavored gelatin (I use Knox)
• food color
• paintbrush
• piping gel or royal icing

1. You need to make the gelatin, in order to do that mix 2 1/2 parts water to 1 part gelatin.
   • I normally do 3TBSP gelatin (about a box and a half of Knox) to 7TBSP Water.
   • Mix the gelatin and water together than place in the micorwave, heat slowly (it can boil over easy so start off 30 seconds the first time you heat it)
   • Sitr occasionally till all gelatin is dissolved in the water (it will still will have a brownish color to it but no more clumps)
   • Let it sit at room temp for about 10 minutes, it will form a white foam like surface that you can remove peel off with a utensil. I like to reheat once more, stir and let sit again removing any more white foam you see. Once that’s done it’s ready to use.
   • Keep the gelatin covered when your not using, it forms a clear layer pretty fast.
2. Next I heat up the gelatin a little at a time since we are using small molds you have to work faster, the warmer the gelatin is the easier it is to work with.
   • Mix the desired food coloring into the geltain once it’s warm. Go slightly darker than you normally would on the colors cause it will dry thinner.
   • Use the paint brush and paint the inside of the mold with the gelatin, you do not want to complete fill in the molds just outline it really good. As it dries it will become thinner if the mold is too fill the gem will pull and loose it’s shape. Let dry, tiny gems can take as short as 10 minutes, large gems have take anywhere from a couple of hours to a day. When you move the candy molds the gems should shake loose.

I thought I could try and make the gems darker by adding a second layer of gelatin to dried gems, the picture below shows why that will not work.

Always make extra, sometimes no matter what you do they don’t dry right, but it only takes a few minutes to make these and can be a lifesaver when you need gems.

Gems on the crown were the smallest molds I own, I attached with piping gel. The ones on the side of the cake are the biggest, I added some fondant to them and stuck to the cake.

These gems I added to these cookies with piping gel, although after I did this I thought about how gross it would be to eat a cookie with gelatin on it. I don’t recommend it. Add these pictures just so you can see the gems. Gelatin is not something you really want a bite of.

I added these gems to the crown with royal icing.

-- Jessica, Kodiak Alaska http://www.facebook.com/ConceptualConfections